Sex and the City 2 (2010)

“Sex and the City 2” is an abomination. Over reaction? I present this scene: NYC sex columnist/novelist/wife Carrie Bradshaw (Sara Jessica Parker) is sitting in a private jet, flying to Abu Dhabi on an all-expense paid trip. Free. No strings. Is she looking out at the window at the majestic world below her? Is she contemplating the wonders of culture and geography at her destination? No. She is pouting. She says, in that “I’m so witty” voice that Parker employs, and grinds my soul apart, and I quote, “Somewhere over Africa, I began to wonder about relationships.” Who. The. Fuck. Talks. Like. That? I mean, even in a fictional high-on-sugar-and-schmaltz fantasy cream fizz bullshit film about rich, snobby, soulless New Yorkers?

Carrie pouts because husband Mr. Big, a wildly wealthy Wall Street type played by Chris Noth, bought her a massive TV for their anniversary, so they can snuggle and watch movies in bed. The horror! The abuse. Pfft. It sinks in fast during the first 20 minutes of this ungodly long film that God Himself, if He exists or not, in all His infinite glory could not satisfy Carrie Bradshaw. So she will pout. She’s become a caricature reality show Housewife of Wherever, I guess New York. She is a 45-year-old child, with Botox. Syringes of Botox.

But that’s just the tip of this vile fantasy anti-feminist comedy that is so unaware of its self and the universe and any remote reality, it thinks having Arabic women lifting burkas to reveal hidden Madison Square Avenue clothes equals liberation. In a region infamous for killing women who dare speak out, drive, and ask for equal rights from their men overlords. More eye-opening side trips in this in-Hollywood-only Middle East include the four TV “SATC” friends (Cynthia Nixon, Kim Cattrall and Kristin Davis are all on hand with Ms. Parker) having an openly swishy gay Arabic manservant because … we all know how Islamic-nations love gay people. As much as the Republican party. I won’t get into the multi-million-dollar opening gay wedding with swans, an all men’s chorus, and Liza Minnelli as the officiator and entertainment. So damn vulgar.

Director/writer/torturer Michael Patrick King has said this film -- this capitalism-is-God soul fuck -– is a throwback to the fantasy films of the ’30s, purposeful fluff made to cheer up audiences rocked by the Great Depression. Never mind that many people in 2010 could not afford the $12 movie ticket to be sucker punched. It was a nickel back in 1931. The HBO TV show was known for some crass consumerism, for sure, but it also was amazingly smart and shrewd, giving men the window-shop treatment women suffer in 99 percent of films and music and TV shows. Heartbreaks were played out, and 9/11 honorably looked upon with love for New York. The few moments of insight in this -– Davis’ mother weeping over hectic children and Nixon’s attorney dealing with a sexist boss, everyday stuff women deal with -– are drowned out in silliness such as a hot nanny with no bra, Jude Law jokes, and Nixon chirping all Minnie-Mouse-like saying “I’ll get a better job!” Really, lady, in this economy?

That the movie winks at true sexism and the economy, the housing market, and joblessness, GREED that has destroyed millions of lives, and yet has every character blissfully not giving a fuck is all the more insulting. A better film could have had these ladies knocked down a peg, holding fast to their friendship through the loss or a job, or eviction, or uncertainty. I have read reviews comparing the excess and dumpsters of money found here to “Transformers 2.” I’d say this film is more akin to “Grown Ups,” a sad sack comedy full of 40-year-olds acting like 20-year-olds, fully unaware no one in the audience finds them relevant anymore. At least the first film, released in 2008, had kick and spark of character growth, mixed in with the commercialism.

Final insult: The women flaunt their “feminist” power in the land of Allah like a pack of Westboro church members screaming free speech as they belittle every single human within earshot, and yet cry foul when criticized. Cattrall’s sex lioness -- once a pop culture icon, now a stereotype – is the prime offender, mimicking oral sex at an Arabic restaurant. That’s not feminism. That’s pissing on feminism. On culture. The whole film is an insult to women, Muslims, gays, America, the Middle East, all sense and sensibility. If you like this film, please, buy, rent or borrow a soul. There is none to be found here. F

Hellboy (2004)

Guillermo del Toro’s “Hellboy” is among the best comic book adaptations out there. And why not? The Spanish master of cinema (he had “The Devil’s Backbone” behind him, and “Pan’s Labyrinth” before him) has a massive bright-red-skinned, sawed-off demon-horned, cat-loving superhero as his star, one who smokes – PC alert! – cigars.

Del Toro doesn’t shy away from the comic book tone, as so many others do to be as audience-pleasing as possible, he embraces it. He even has “Hellboy” comic books be part of the early plot as a young novice FBI agent (Rupert Evans) is assigned as a baby sitter to the prime agent of a top-secret super-natural subdivision of the fed. That’s the tough hero Hellboy, played by Ron Perlman, a character so bizarre to look at onscreen, one marvels still this film ever got made. Or produced a sequel. Perlman, by the way, gives a star-making performance, and clearly is having a blast as the center of attention. He’s the Hulk meets Dirty Harry meets Lucifer, as a misunderstood good guy, and the color of a red Crayola. John Hut, always good and just oozing majesty is Hellboy’s adaptive father, a scientist in love with the strange and unusual.

Part comedy, part horror and action, and all World War II Spielberg Nazis as bad guys opera, this film is a delight from frame one to frame last, because of del Toro’s love for the bizarre, and fantastical sci-fi nonsense. The main villain is none other than Rasputin (Karel Roden), or at least the comic book version of infamous Russian madman, over the top evil and yet grounded as one would expect from the guy who made “Cronos.” (Perlman starred in that gem and “Blade II,” too.) Del Toro’s onscreen pranks include “anything goes” sights in New York to an assassin with sand for blood, and a box full of kittens in need of rescue. (A box full of kittens!)

This is how you take a film from ink-stained comic book pages to the big screen, just go for it. Excellent special effects, makeup and art direction throughout, it’s clearly been inspired by the similar “Men in Black.” Great popcorn fun. A

The Long Good Friday (1980)

“The Long Good Friday” is an absolute pinnacle classic gangster film in the U.K., place of my birth. Here in the States, not so much. It may not have glory and prestige of “The Godfather” or “Goodfellas,” but it belongs in the same esteemed crime family. This is a hard-scrapple bitchin’ bloody mafia flick about a common London mafia thug who has risen to the level of Godfather, and now he wants to go legit.

It’s 1979, and in several years’ time, the city is expected to play host to the Olympics. (It’s fictional, youz guys.) Harold Shand (Bob Hoskins) wants to buy up London’s real estate abutting the Thames River for development, with promised riches beyond compare to come. His investors? The American Mob. Guy ain’t going legit, just thinks he is, or tells us he is. Oh, but the IRA is bugging about, as one of his men has double-crossed them, and ended up knifed in a gay bathhouse.

The title is on purpose. It’s a long and bloody Easter weekend when Shant’s mob life goes to a violent hell, with bombings, murders, and threats galore, and one man will end up nailed Jesus-style to a floor. Hopkins has never been better or scarier, or more volatile, you can smell the brimstone coming off the guy through the TV set. When he rips a man’s throat apart with a broken whiskey bottle, it’s still a shocker, even on a 10th viewing. (I love this film.)

Helen Mirren is just amazing as Shants’ girlfriend-slash-brutal brains of the mob operation; every equal smarts to Hopkins’ brutality. She has to be one of the greatest actresses ever, period, end of story. Royally good. I will not stoop to a “Queen” joke, err, damn. Sorry.

The film starts off a puzzle box, with seemingly random scenes of dealings and bar hook ups and body dumps, all coming together at the end, in a wordless climax that should have won Hopkins an Oscar and can stand aside any scene in the more well-known films made by Coppola or Scorsese. Scotsman John Mackenzie is the director. He never made a better film and he died without merely a blip in the news this past June. Criminal indeed. (I cannot say I have seen his other work.)

Oh, and bonus points for “Remington Steele” and James Bond fans, this is Piece Brosnan’s first film rule, and he plays a wordless assassin who goes from man-on-man bathhouse shower action, I mean the kind that would send GOP voters into shock, to killer in a flash. But, hey, he uses a gun, so GOP voters will dig that, eh? Seriously, if you dig crime film, watch this, then put it in your collection. A+

Moneyball (2011)

What better time to see “Moneyball” than now? World Series! Baseball is in its glory, when even the folks who don’t care a whiff about RBIs suddenly start paying attention to the diamond drama. And this is a solid out of left field drama that avoids the tired comedy antics of “Major League” and focuses solely inside the back offices. (That said, this is no “Bull Durham.” But what sports film is?)

It's 2001 and Oakland Athletics’ GM Billy Beane is coming off a post-season crushing by the Yankees. His top players bolted for greener pastures, money –wise and location-wise. He needs replacements. STAT. But his recruiting budget is a third of the Yankees’. So, how the hell can Beane compete? That’s the gist of “Moneyball,” where Beane – played by Brad Pitt in a powerfully understated Everyman tone – goes against the biblical rules of baseball scouts, and instead relies on the “get on Base” mantra of one Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), an economics geek. If you know baseball, you know the rest. The As start the season awful, with a piss-ant coach (Philip Seymour-Hoffman, head shaved and crusty) ruining the lineup. Beane must take control.

Co-written by Aaron Sorkin and Steve Zallian, “Moneyball” is about any passion or business – pizza-making, movie-making, banking or professional sport – steam-rolled by Big Money, all the joy and unknowns crushed under consumer surveys and greed. The baseball scenes are almost beside the point as Beane never watches the games. That said, the tumults of an imploded 11-0 lead make for damn fine filmmaking by director Bennet Miller, who made “Capote.” Yeah, the ending goes long in the bottom of the ninth, but it is painless.

I cannot say enough how much I dug Pitt’s performance, and Hill is brilliant, who knew? What an amazing, quiet, smart performance he gives. Bravo, sir! The camaraderie between the two men is often awkwardly funny, including a scene where Beane teaches Brand how to fire players -- guys twice Brand’s size and who carry bats. The dialogue, as expected from Zallian and Sorkin, pops like a fly ball that never comes down. A-

Gangs of New York (2002)

I’ve re-watched “Gangs of New York” several times recently, and still come to the same conclusion I felt in 2002: It’s a powder keg film at its opening with Daniel Day-Lewis and Liam Neeson swinging axes and blades as 1840s rival gang leaders in New York’s Five Points, the sector of race, religion and pride ran over. Bill “The Butcher” Cutting – that’s Day Lewis – stands unbowed as Neeson’s Priest falls dead. I was slack-jawed then and now at the onscreen carnage. Yet, the film’s remainder never balances or even gels, making for a fascinating disappointment from director Martin Scorsese. The story dissolves in an odd (and literal) telegraphed narration as the Priest’s grown son (Leonardo DiCaprio) seeks vengeance against Cutting. A climatic riot/gang fight/naval attack is so spastic, we require text to pinpoint what’s going on. Too much. Not enough. It’s a tremendous telling of democratic America’s terrible, blood-soaked birth that Tea Party folks refuse to believe. (They actually think this nation began with freedom for all and biblical values, and want to go back.) It’s just not a satisfying film, feeling sliced even at 160 minutes. Day-Lewis is volcano, spewing a violent code of “honor” shocking in its depravity. DiCaprio wilts in his presence. B-

Priest (2011)

Paul Bettany says he is an atheist. Yet the man seems obsessed with God. Overtly so. He played an outcast priest in “Reckoning,” an albino monk assassin (!!) in “Da Vinci Code,” a devout and troubled Charles Darwin in “Creation,” and a vengeful angel of God in “Legion.” In “Priest,” he scowls as a ninja clergymen battling vampires. Priests slicing vampires with swords! Makes sense. This ought to rock. But it’s a dull flick with “Matrix” fight scenes leftover from 1999, and art direction that marries blown-out white dessert to “Blade Runner” cityscapes. It’s all ugly, and PG-13 safe. The sullen Bettany – so cool in “Master and Commander” – is far less interesting than Karl Urban channeling classic Eastwood as the vamp leader or Christopher Plummer channeling a Republican-type giddy on church-state rule. The plot – the Priest must save his kidnapped niece – is pure “Searchers,” but the only thing found is another sinkhole franchise launcher going nowhere. And it was all in 3-D in theaters. Lord have mercy. C-

The Way (2011)

Emilio Estevez is a quiet and introspective writer and director of the self-funded “The Way,” a family drama starring real-life pop Martin Sheen (ne Ramon Estevez) as a grieving father coming out of his all-for-capitalism shell. It deals with fathers/sons and religious values, and not cheekily so. Sheen is Tom Avery, an aging eye doctor who receives a call while on the golf course: His son (Estevez) has died while walking the famed trail Camino de Santiago, the Way of St. James. Tom goes to Europe to collect the body and return home. But, alone and openly weeping in his hotel, he decides to finish the son’s journey, one he openly mocked to the son’s face. So, yes, Tom will have his own awakening. His eyes (did you miss that symbolism?) will open. I wish we knew more of Daniel’s intent (why that trail, why not hike in Chile?), but the film is about Tom’s character, and stopping to see sunsets and going to church. Even if you don’t believe. Sheen is stoic in this quiet thoughtful tale. (He is just as stoic in person, I saw this screen in his presence at Virginia Tech. Amazing man.) P.S. I want to see Estevez cut as wildly loose behind the camera as he did on camera in “Young Guns.” That would be a freakin' blast. B+